Moonless
by Starlight River of Dreams
Summary: There had been no moon that night.


_"A house is not a home unless it contains food and fire for the mind as well as the body." ~ Benjamin Franklin_

.

There had been no moon that night.

Tigress somersaults over the wooden block and delivers a powerful kick to the training dummy, sending it flying across the floor into the wall opposite. She lands perfectly on her feet just as the dummy rebounds with a loud crack, dented despite its designed durability. She smiles triumphantly, victory shining in her eyes. She has finally done it.

She turns to Shifu, the grin plastered on her face, exhilaration pumping through her veins. She turns, unguarded.

A grave mistake.

She faces a pair of cold blue eyes. Immediately, the smile fades, and reality slams head-on into her, piercing right into her unprotected heart. The vulnerable joy that she had foolishly let free is immediately knocked down, and everything plummets into gloom once more.

As always.

She shouldn't have expected anything else, yet she always does. There is always the stubborn hope, refusing to admit defeat, rising each time only to be destroyed again. There is always the tiny voice, speaking of times she knows will never come. There is always one part of her, one stupid idiotic part of her, that remains begging for something she knows she'll never have.

She never learns.

Shifu steps up to her, not making eye contact, and corrects her position with a few taps of his cane before walking away with no more than an instruction left.

"Two hundred push-ups before lunch."

Every time, she wonders what she had done, or what she had not done, to deserve a single praise or the slightest warmth. She wonders why Shifu hates her so, why nothing she ever does is good enough for him. She wonders why he is indifferent to _anything_ related to her.

But she knows she is lying to herself.

Because she knows why. The questions have been answered long ago, by a section of history. Shifu's history, no less. All her musings vanishing with a single scrap of information. She knows how Shifu had been hurt, how it had hardened him to everything else. She knows that she is just a threat, seen as an opportunity to hurt him again. She knows, but it is not enough.

Because knowledge doesn't take away her own pain.

It doesn't make the blows any softer. It doesn't prevent the involuntary plummeting her heart experiences every time she sees him. She can't even pass his room without the lump in her throat. It doesn't hurt any less. Because it replaces part of the agony with something that hurts just as much.

Because now she knows that she'll never be good enough. She knows that nothing she does will be seen the same way as they would've been, as they _should've_ been. She knows that to Shifu, she is nothing but a poor orphaned girl who needed shelter, an orphaned girl who might betray him like he had been betrayed before.

She knows she'll never be what Tai Lung had been to him.

And it's that realization, that realization of _never_, which throws her to the ground, which shatters her into a million fragments. That night, she didn't even close her eyes.

There had been no moon that night.

She remembers seeing Shifu's now-familiar figure strolling up to the main house of the orphanage, remembers her joy at seeing him dissolving into confusion at his direction. She had watched through the window of her small room as the door swung shut, her heart now in her throat. She remembers the almost painful anxiety, and how her eyes had been fixed on the door for so long that she nearly became cross-eyed. She didn't know that that instant would change her whole life.

And now, she's not so sure anymore that it was for the better.

Shifu had came out when stars had started to dot the dark sky, and young Tigress had thrown open the door, unable to bear the tension anymore.

"Shifu! What happened?"

She had suddenly realized that she was prepared to embrace the Kung-Fu master, and immediately halted in front of the red panda, whipping her paws to her sides, her shout dying in her throat. A flush had warmed her cheeks, and she bowed, repeating her words in a more restrained manner, voice hushed by shame and the ever-present respect:

"Shifu, what happened?"

She remembers the initial disbelief at his response, and then the blazing elation that had filled her mind and clouded all her senses.

"I adopted you."

She had been too wrapped up in her own happiness to notice anything else. Perhaps if she had looked closer, she would've seen a guardedness to Shifu's countenance. Perhaps she would've perceived the stiffness in his posture. Perhaps she would've detected the hesitant edge to his words. Perhaps she would've noticed how Shifu had refrained from calling her 'my daughter'.

But she didn't.

What she did notice, however, as they left the orphanage, was how there was no moon in the night sky.

.

In China, moon is the symbol of home. It is something constant, something that follows you even if you travel to the most distant places on the planet. It's always there, there to give you comfort, there to provide solace. It reminds you that it shines down on your home as well, that no matter how far or remote your location is, you are seeing something that can be seen from home. It's to remind you that you always have somewhere to return to, somewhere you truly belong.

But how can you return home, when you don't have one?

She pauses at the edge of the stairs, having just leapt up all the steps to the Jade Palace, not because of exhaustion, but rather because the scene of the palace at night was so eerily familiar to her first memory of it. A moon rises above the roof today, round and luminous, and she is reminded yet again of that night.

That moonless night.

She remembers how she had been unable to stop smiling all the way to the Jade Palace, how she had to restrain herself from running all the way. She had felt like dancing - her paws were light and barely skimming across the earth. If Shifu had noticed her excitement, he didn't show it; instead, he led her silently to her new home.

Or so she had thought.

A home is not only where you live; it's where you belong. It's where your family is.

She never had a family.

A few pieces of paper say nothing; marks on a surface don't determine your home. They don't make someone love you. They don't dictate the matters of your heart.

She should've known.

Eventually, the delight wore off, and reality sunk in. Eventually, the lies lost their persuasive charm, and she saw the raw ugliness of the truth. Eventually, she realized that all her dreams and hopes were impossible to be fulfilled.

Eventually, she realized that Shifu would never love her.

She never knew how it was like for someone to care about you, to care about whether you're well or not; someone who share your achievements and consoles you in your darkest times. She never knew how it was for someone to look at you with pride in their eyes, with love in their words, with care in their actions. She never knew how it was like to be praised just for the sake of it, to be hugged tightly, to be kissed goodnight. All she had ever known was the cold lonely life she had been born into.

It was meant to be like this.

She wasn't meant to be loved; she was supposed to spark fear. She wasn't meant to feel or care; she was stoic and cold. She wasn't meant to have a weakness; she was strong and invincible.

But she was never really what she was meant to be.

It was no use thinking about what she wanted, when the impossibility of it was set into stone. It was no use wondering about how it could've been. No use crying over what could never be.

She tears her eyes away from the sight and stalks into the palace, pushing every thought of _home_ out. It was pointless heaping unnecessary pain on herself. It was pointless opening old wounds that have not quite healed yet, and may never do so. Pointless to remind herself of harsh reality.

She heads to her room, passing Shifu's on the way. Her throat constricts, but she forces herself to take a deep breath and proceed calmly. It is just a room.

_Just a room._

She slides open her door and stops outside the small space. Her mat is laid on the floor, blanket folded neatly at the head of the mat. A chest of drawers is pushed into one wall. She gazes at her room for a while and suddenly, she realizes just how _cold_ it is.

A far cry from home.

But she never had a home, so who is she to judge? She never had a home, and she never will. She was born this way.

She draws the door shut again, her bed no longer appealing to her tired aching limbs. Looking out of a nearby window, she sees the figure of her master in the night. The silver moonlight casts a pale glow to the red panda's form, creating an almost ethereal hue. Untouchable. She clenches her fists without realizing it. Anger and disappointment flare from within the dark depths of her soul, mingling with her other feelings to create a roaring inferno of emotion.

Unspoken questions rise to her lips, accusations powerful enough to destroy. A part of her _hates_ Shifu, hates him for putting her through all this. For giving her a taste of home, and then withdrawing everything again. Hates him for being the cause of all the pain, the disappointment, the crushed hopes. She hates Tai Lung, for betraying Shifu, for shattering his ability to trust, for taking all the love Shifu ever had to offer. She hates everyone who has contributed in some way to her current situation.

But she knows she is being unfair. She knows that she is directing the force of all her emotions to something, _anything_, other than herself, because it is simply too much for her to bear. The knowledge is too much for her to carry. The pain is too heavy, too intense. She can't take it.

Because it was impossible for her to connect to Shifu. Because he would remain forever her master, and nothing else. Not her protector, not her guardian, not her father. It was decreed by the laws of nature. She will never have a father, or a family, or a home.

Because the moon represents home, and there had been no moon that night.

.

_"The ache for home lives in all of us, the safe place where we can go as we are and not be questioned." ~ Maya Angelou_

_.  
><em>

**A/N: This is the result when my mind gets crammed with ideas and I just have to pour it all out in a limited amount of time. It gets too messed up for me to edit without cutting out bits I find are quite important. And yes, I know it's not all that good, but I wanted to see if the quotes work well… or not.**


End file.
